A replica of the F4B-3 fighter dangles from the rafters at the Havelock Tourist Center.
Photo by Lois Carol Wheatley.

About Havelock – The Tip of the Tailfin

Havelock, located adjacent to MCAS Cherry Point, is home to a small community of retired Marines that comprise a significant portion of Havelock’s population. These residents are still on active duty in its own right, mainly at Havelock’s Tourist and Event Center, but anywhere else in the region where the landing gear makes contact with the tarmac.

Formally organized as Eastern Carolina Aviation Heritage Foundation, it is responsible for mounting and maintaining the various displays and glass-case exhibits, and for procuring a donation from Lockheed Martin that paid for three large TV monitors that continuously run videos. Its avowed mission is to explore the roots of manned flight in Coastal Carolina, “from Kitty Hawk to Contrails.”

The foundation maintains a website, its homepage erupting in airplane noises while a slide show flashes images, from Wright Brothers to fighter jets to small boys in the presence of large planes to dazzling rays of sunlight streaking through a low cloud cover.

On their site, you will learn that history “flows through the streets of Havelock,” literally speaking in the form of Miller Boulevard, commemorating Brigadier General Ivan W. Miller who, from 1947-50, was commander of MCAS Cherry Point. This was a pivotal period, just as troops returned from World War II but then the country plunged back into conflict, returning men to combat during the Korean War in 1950.

The homepage also contains an eloquent passage from Leonardo da Vinci, written roughly four centuries prior to the advent of aviation: “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”